OSCEOLA COUNTY, Fla. — A new program this school year monitors when students get on and off the school bus in Osceola County.

“The beginning of the school year, it will help us to see which bus the student actually got on and which stop they got off at. Because sometimes they get off a street too early because they’re excited,” said Amy Jacob with the Osceola School District.

Students will swipe their identification cards to get on and off the school bus. The school district can then use that information if parents call and wonder why their child never got off the school bus, or never got to school.

“If the children happen to get off at the wrong stop, we can get to them a lot quicker than we normally would with our other system,” Jacob said.

Administrators say the goal of the student ridership program is to help locate lost students more quickly and not to track your child’s whereabouts.

“People are so scared of tracking your students. It’s not about tracking your students,” Jacob said. “We want your kids to be safe.”

Jacob, who is in charge of creating the school bus routes, said this new program also will help make sure they’ve got enough buses at the schools that need them the most.

“We’ll be able to see how many students are getting on or off at a particular bus, and that’s going to help with our overload situations,” she said.

District officials said they also hope the new program helps count the number of students using the bus, which determines state funding.

Right now, the program is voluntary, so if a student doesn’t have an ID, he or she can still ride the bus.